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A nice idea

Last christmas my daughters god father bought her this sweet shop which looking on the internet I have found costs around £10 and is available from amazon and I have also seen them in the bargain type shops such as Home bargains.

The sweet shop comes in quite a large cardboard box which you do need to keep to keep all the pieces in so storage was an issue and we finally found a shelf it would fit on if it stood on it's side. The box is pretty sturdy and nearly a year later it isn't damaged at all and still holds all the pieces.

Inside the box you find all the pieces for the sweet shop, all the pieces are made of strong plastic and are all brightly coloured. The main piece is green with a space at the back for the scales to fit in and two circular sections either side of the scales for 2 jars of sweets to fit into, there are 6 sections for sweets to sit in and the main part has a drawer for the money you will take in your shop. There are two side pieces which simply push up from underneath into the main piece, these are blue in colour and have places for more sweets and two holes on the back of each one for lollies to stand in. The scales have two pieces which sit together on the main piece and the scales actually do move when you place things in them. All the pieces are very strong and even with my daughters rough play there isn't any damage to any of the pieces.

To complete the set you get some pretend money, there are some notes which do get bent very easily and then there are coins in silver and gold. The toy comes complete with 4 lollies and 3 different lots of sweets, there are dolly mixtures minus the jellies, dolly mixture style jellies seperately and then some little jelly babies. The sweets seemed to dry out quite quickly after christmas so I did wonder how long they had been packaged and the lollies were pretty sticky like they go when they are past their best.

My daughter liked the idea of the sweet shop and after christmas she did like playing with it quite a bit however I am an evil mother and she has a ration of ten sweets per day so once she had weighed her ten sweets and paid for them she became bored quickly and the toy would be put away again. I think this toy would have been better for a child that has a sibling to play with or even some friends in the street but our street has no other children and her sister is too young to play with her.

This toy has quite quickly been forgotton about and it is one that will be removed on christmas eve, I removed the sweets that were in the toy and gave her sweets from her cupboard to play with which was also a pain as she would want more sweets than she was allowed to eat to make the shop look good but them they were getting handled and going in the bin. The shop is very brightly coloured and I think it's good for teaching about weight and money and the concept that we must pay for what we want but it just wasn't suitable for my daughter.

I recommend this for children who have another child to play with but I would recommend removing the sweets from inside as they certainly weren't very fresh.

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Love this toy when I was a kid and still do

Ok firstly I have to admit that I had one of these when I was little so wanted one for my son so he too could enjoy it whilst bringing back fun memories for me.

Casdon pick & mix shop can be purchased for £9.99 at Argos or from Tesco direct at same price. The above picture is exactly as it is apart from few colour changes. It comes with a yellow base with 5 sections for placing sweets and two spaces for placing the jars on which are made from plastic not glass. The scales slot into place easily and then place the weighing tray on it. Then two side pieces are easily attached which has more space for sweets and each has two hole to hold lollies in.

Operating instructions leaflet came with it, yes I had to laugh as it isn't hard to assemble. It states assorted bags of sweets but actually it was just one large bag of sugary covered sweets. sugar crumbs all over the place as soon as my son opened it.

Once the shop is assembled you get to weigh and buy sweets using the included plastic money and notes. I do like the plastic jars they look cute with jelly bears in them. Even a plastic scoop is included.There is a money draw in the unit but I actually got my so a Early learning centre till to go with this shop, possible future review.

Now I loved being the buyer of sweets for a little while but soon got bored lol. My son however kept playing until I had to take away what sweets were left. I think this is a great toy and when he has friends round I can buy a few sweets for them to play with.I like the nice vibrant colours of this toy too.

I only wish that with the shop came some small sweet bags too. Once the big bag was split open it was quite messy. I may try to make some small bags actually to add to the fun.This is a great role playing toy and may even help with understanding money and the values. I won't always use sweets for my son to play with as he'll be just as happy to use raisins or fruit portions instead.

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Looking for a reasonable priced toy for a child, then this is perfect!

I had this as a child and to be honest its not changed much, so when I seen it in Argos for a bargan price of £9.99, I picked it up for my little cousins fifth birthday, which was approaching.

It comes in sturdy plastic, and is brightly coloured, making it enderaing to children, before even considering the sweets.

It has several compartment and two jar for placing sweets and lollipops in, which come supplied with the toy, and when they run out, you can simply top it up from the local supermarket.

It has a set of working scales, although they are only number and do not way in metric weights, so if the intention was to teach children measurement and weight, it failed. It also has a mini till, which includes play money( agreat aid, for children learning to count).

It may seem a bit ironic, when trying to encourage healthy eating to have toys like this, but I feel that children should be children, and sweets are a big part of childhood. Alternatively though, you could when time to replace finished sweets comes, replace them with sugar free varieties.

My younger cousin spends hours playing with this, and ropes all his visitors into playing sweet shops with him, it has even brought him and his older sister closer together as she also enjoys playing it with him.

The packaging states, that this toy is not suitable for children under 3 years due to the inclusion of small parts.

So all in all, its nice to see a toy still available on the market that hasn't changed much over the years.

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not as good as it seems from the picture frankly

Most, nay all kids, love sweets - even my freaky chocolate hating children (not down to me - honest) will do practically anything for a jelly sweet or two. On the face of it then, this should be a pretty perfect toy, being a sweet shop that comes with its own sweeties and most of the things you need to play shop. The reality is that this toy is, at best, average and sadly not quite as alluring as its picture would make it seem.

This was one of the things that my eldest bought just after Christmas - to be fair she had £15 in argos vouchers that she "had" to spend, and as part of a 2 for £15 offer at the time, she was lured by its picture in the catalogue. In reality it is a pretty small toy.

What you actually get is a small yellow tray, as pictured, that is 26cm long by 20cm at its widest point, with two green plastic side bits that slot onto it in a fairly half-hearted manner and extend it by a paltry 5cm on each side. There are a couple of sweetie jars, a little plastic scoop and some money (as pictured) that goes in the "till". The weighing scales have a moving needle that goes from 1-5 and the bowl of the scales is removable. It did come with some sweets but they didn't seem to have a date on, and seeing as I had no idea how long they had languished in Argos I replaced them with our own sweets, though I did generously let the kids loose with the four lollies provided.

In terms of build quality, everything is made of plastic, and the overall look, in reality, is cheap, and a little disappointing. I find that the little holes for the sweets are pretty hard to clean, if you do clean them properly the sticker on the front of the unit come off, and if you don't, well your shop certainly wouldn't pass any hygiene controls.

Play wise - it's OK - though deeply lacking little bags to put sweets in, though you *can*play role play with it before your offspring go into a sugar induced frenzy. We've found, however, the reality is that when we do fill the shop with sweets the children are more likely to sit and eat all the produce than indulge in any meaningful play. This is possibly because frankly no one wants to be the shop keeper, for obvious reasons.

This is a nice idea, but it's fairly poorly executed, the tray for the money doesn't pull out very well and the lids on the jars aren't easily removed by small kids, and also not many sweets will actually fit in the jars. The money is pretty small and miserable looking really, it's alright, but nothing special. The scale is pretty uninspiring too, it does work but it doesn't actually measure anything meaningful.

Personally I wouldn't pay more than about £5 for this and think that you would be better off buying a few sweets of your own and providing the kids with some bags, an empty icecream tub, some scales and a few pennies or alternatively buying some play food from ELC or the like.

This has been played with a few times in the six months we have had it, but to be honest it gets very little use and I couldn't in all honesty recommend it.